Goosebumps Author R.L. Stine Announces the Return of Slappy the Dummy

Author R.L. Stine has delivered readers a number of creepy creations, though few are as iconic as Slappy from his Goosebumps series, with Stine taking to Twitter to tease a new book featuring the nefarious ventriloquist dummy hitting shelves in March. The character first debuted in the novel Night of the Living Dummy and appeared in eight subsequent Goosebumps stories, which included two sequels to the original story, as well as taking a substantial role in both the 2015 and 2018 Goosebumps films. Slappy has recently served as the narrator of the Goosebumps SlappyWorld series, with the upcoming installment Diary of a Dummy seeing a more prominent return.

Stine shared the image of the upcoming book’s cover with the comment, “The evil dummy returns March 3.” The author also encouraged his fans to preorder the book for the burgeoning young horror fans in their lives.

The two big-screen Goosebumps outings have been relative successes, as they have both blended elements from all across the author’s library, but Stine previously teased that he wished he could see his iconic The Haunted Mask storyline be adapted for a movie.

“I would like to see The Haunted Mask. I think that one would make a good feature,” Stine previously shared with ComicBook.com when asked which of his stories would make a good movie last year. “And maybe put together Haunted Mask one and two. That’s my best Halloween book, I think. If they did a third [movie], I would want them to make it a little scarier, and less funny. They go for laughs, which is wonderful, and they have scary scenes, but […] I’d like to see the movies just heighten the scares a little bit.”

A fan-favorite entry of the original novel series is Welcome to Dead House, the very first installment. While fans would love to see that story come to life in a film, Stine has second thoughts about whether it would be too intense for young viewers.

“Well that was the first one, and I didn’t really have the formula, I didn’t really know what I was doing,” the author admitted when that novel was suggested. “See, now I look at Welcome to Dead House, and I think it’s too scary for the series. It doesn’t have the humor of the other books. I didn’t quite have it yet. But that’s interesting you said that, ’cause I think it does stand out, as far as scariness goes.”

Pick up Goosebumps SlappyWorld: Diary of a Dummy on March 3rd.

Are you looking forward to Slappy’s return? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!